Many of us have large families. You can decide what large is. Feeding them healthy foods they like can be a challenge. We try to eat a fairly high protein/low refined carb/high complex carb diet because of one with bipolar.
Cooking the meat on the grill seems to make it more enticing to them. None of us are big meat eaters. I find putting on a little cheese or allowing them to dip it in ranch dressing also helps. Shredding vegetables tiny and then mixing them into other foods works for getting in the veggies.
Any tips for picky eaters or recipes you'd like to share?
3 comments:
I almost forgot to add these tips from an email a friend sent:
You can serve the healthiest, nastiest, crap on a plate, but put a dollip of whipped cream or some chocolate sauce with sprinkles and they will eat it!!! Without it and you are looking for a fight!!! Plus, it is more loving.
I have served some pretty weird healthy recipes and thought "there is no way they will eat this" and slapped some whipped cream on top and they might look at me a little funny, but they eat it.
You can also hide all kinds of veggies in your food. I am notorious for hiding zuccini. I always grow too much and puree it raw into a blender and portion it out into small servings into zip lock bags into the freezer. Believe me, I am lazy, it is not time consuming. You can hide it in french toast, meatloaf, sloppy joes, anything with spagetti sauce, etc. Sweet Potatoes and Carrots actually make your french toast sweeter, and with strawberries or chocolate sauce and whipped cream (a better alternative to high frutose corn syrup), my kids have no idea!!!! :) Again, I just use leftovers, I do not knock myself out. Recently I put a whole quart size bag of acorn squash leftover from thanksgiving in my double batch of sloppy joes and noone noticed. We have to get tons of health into them somehow!!!
I try very hard to not make just one meal at a time. My motto is cook once, serve twice...at least...sometimes I try to serve twice, freeze two more meals, but sometimes I can't because I don't have the time or it gets exhausting and overwhelming, but it is soooooooooooo nice to just pull out that meal that is already made. I have a friend that purchases tons of meat and then makes meatloaves and meatballs and hamburger patties in advance so all she has to do is re-heat them, or if raw hamburgers, hand them to her husband.
Yogurt is a high protein "dip" for fruit. :)
We do lots of veggies on the grill too! Just chop & wrap them in foil with olive oil and whatever spices you like.
We cook lowfat by substituting fat free yogurt for oil when baking, unlike using applesauce, it cooks just as light and fluffy.
We add protein by adding powdered milk to most baking.
We use mostly frozen veggies instead of canned (avoiding peas and corn which don't have a lot of nutrition - corn is actually a grain not a veggie). I like to toss them in the blender and mix them into sauces (like spaghetti). When baby food is on sale I've been known to use that.
We don't eat potatoes, but if we did it would have to be with the skins on. My kids love sweet potato fries. We clean the potatoes (leaving the skin on). Cut them into thick homestyle slices. Spray a baking tray, laying out the fries and spraying them with non-stick spray. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, flip and bake for another 20.
We only eat 100% whole grain bread. We just don't keep junk food in the house so it's not tempting. When we eat desserts it tends to be things like squirrel cookies (oatmeal and other grain cookies with dried fruits and nuts) or chocolate chip cherry bread - banana bread with cocoa powder and dried cherries. I use Splenda for everything.
Mary in Texas
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